Not So Different, You and I
by SnowingShipper
Summary: A post-ep for "The Miller's Daughter" Regina and Snow have a long over due heart to heart.
1. A Heart To Heart

**A short post-ep for "The Miller's Daughter" because I'm a sucker for a happy ending. I don't own OUAT or this is what would have happened.**

She should rip the woman's heart out. It is what she's wanted to do since she'd sat on Mr. Gold's floor clutching her mother's lifeless body and her destroyed hope of having something more. She's wanted to watch Snow White's face contort in pain as she squeezes the life out of her heart. But she is tired of fighting, tired of death, a weariness she sees reflected in Snow's own eyes and so, somehow, they are instead sat together on the sofa and sipping hot chocolate.

"Why didn't you kill me earlier?" Snow breaks the silence with a question Regina had hoped she wouldn't ask and she simply glares at her in response.

"It is not to late for me to kill you if that's what you would like."

Snow shakes her head. "No, that's not what I meant. You've hated me for nearly fifty years and tried so hard to kill me for a long time but why did you wait so long? We lived together in the castle for over a decade and I was just a child. You know that castle as well as I do. How easy it would be for a little girl to have an accident on those steep stairs, to be trampled by a spooked horse escaped from the stables. There are a thousand ways you could have killed me and yet you didn't. You put on an impressive façade, no one would ever have suspected you had anything to do with it. Why didn't you kill me?"

This was even worse than the question Regina had thought she was asking. Silence falls between them for a long moment before Regina replies. "You killed my mother."

"That's not..."

"No," Regina interrupts. "You've said your piece, now you listen to me." She took a deep breath before continuing. "You killed my mother. As good and pure and innocent as you were always supposed to be, you killed her. But it was not something that developed in a moment, was it? That urge, the hatred that could drive you to do such an unspeakable evil. That developed over time. You lost a mother, a father, a daughter's childhood, Johanna. Evil is not born, it's made Snow White. And it is not made in an instant. It is a path of darkness walked by the most broken souls and once you have set yourself down it, it is very hard to turn back."

"Broken souls," Snow echoes softly. "Like you and I."

"I don't think we can count ourselves in the same boat."

"I think we can," Snow insists. "Now more than ever. I will not pretend to approve of what you did to me, but I understand it. Murder is not me and whatever your mother did I will bear the guilt on my heart forever, but I understand now how loss and pain can drive you to do terrible things." Regina regards Snow with new eyes for a moment, as the realises the truth that she has spoken.

"Perhaps," she muses quietly. "Perhaps we are not so different, you and I."

Snow nods. "I don't think that we are. We were not always like this. The woman who saved me that day, she was good, more so that I will ever be. I was only good, only tried to be good, because of my mother, because I knew that's what she wanted of me. You were good despite your mother's attempts to make you ruthless and uncaring." This is the last thing Regina had expected to hear. The Evil Queen, more good than Snow White? A preposterous notion. But there is a sincerity in Snow's voice that even Regina can't doubt.

"I am not good anymore," she whispers softly. Snow shakes her head.

"No, but neither am I. We both allowed our grief to cloud our hearts and let us make the wrong choices. I will not insult you by begging your forgiveness for killing your mother, just as I do not yet forgive you for taking Emma from me but the acts of evil that we both have done do not need to define us. We do not have to let them define us. Maybe there is a way that we can be good again. "

"That is easy for you to say. No-one thinks that you're evil, they think that you're a hero."

"I don't think I'm a hero. I didn't kill Cora in the midst of battle, I murdered her, and I did it in the cruellest way imaginable. I am sorry for that."

"Be that as it may, you still have so many people who love you. I have no one left. What do I have to live for ? What do I have to be good for?"

"Henry."

"He hates me," Regina argues bitterly.

"No he doesn't."

"And how can you possibly know that?"

"Because I don't hate you," Snow exclaims. "Despite all that you have done I have never been able to hate you because I remember. I remember a time before all of this, a time when, pretending or not, you looked after me, you raised me. I remember when you were my mother, a better step-mother than I could ever have wished for, and I loved you more than anything else. I see that same love in Henry's eyes. I know you hated me when I was a child but you love Henry, I know you do. So even though my love wasn't enough, maybe Henry's can be. Maybe Henry's love for you can pull you back. Surely he is something to be good for?"

Love. Love feels like a foreign concept to Regina now. She almost feels as though, in putting that heart back into her mother's chest, she has ripped out her own. And yet, she can still feel it beating inside of her and, at the mention of Henry, she feels it swell. She still has her heart and she still loves her son.

"Henry, she says slowly. "Is something to be great for."

Snow smiles at her, tears in her eyes, and Regina is pulled back through many memories. The smile is one that she recognises from when Henry was young, he got a lot from his mother and a lot from his grandmother, but the memories of that smile go further back than that. It is a smile so full of love and hope and to see it again on the face of this woman, who is all grown up but still in so many ways the little girl that Regina rescued from a runaway horse so many years ago, drags back memories that Regina had thought she had long since banished from her mind. Memories from the early days in castle, before her heart had been so consumed by darkness, when she had been, if not quite happy, content. When she had played Snow's favourite childhood games and they had smiled together and sometimes Regina had even managed to forget that the girl was the cause of her misery.

_"You would have been enough."_

Her mother's words echo in her her mind and, looking at Snow, she begins to wonder. She had always wanted a child. Had always been so determined to be a far better mother than her's had been. Could this child have been enough?

"I didn't hate you," Regina says finally. "That is why I didn't kill you when you were a child. I had only just begun down the path to darkness, towards what I became. I could have turned back. I should have turned back. I have had little love in my life but from the moment I rescued you from that horse you began to warm my heart and I loved you. Your love _should_ have been enough. I didn't physically have no heart, not like my mother, but after Daniel died I clouded it. I tried to refuse to love anything or anyone because to love, to use my heart, only reminded me of how broken it was. But I did love you. There were times when I forgot to check myself, when I allowed my heart to open and I loved you and, for a moment, it was good. Maybe if I had allowed those moments to happen more," Regina sighs. "I should not have allowed my grief to cloud my heart in such darkness. I am sorry."

Snow stares at Regina in shock. She had not been entirely sure what to expect when she had arrived on the Queen's doorstep but an admission of her love and an apology had been the furthest thing from her mind. Eventually she nods, wiping the tears from her cheeks.

"I am sorry too, for Daniel, for your mother, for everything."

Regina nods back, tears beginning to fill her own eyes. Silence hung in the air between them for a long while and Snow played nervously with the ends of her scarf as she desperately tried to gather the courage to ask her next question.

"When did you stop?" she eventually asks quietly and Regina looks at her in confusion. "When did you stop loving me?" Snow clarifies, looking away from her step-mother.

Regina looks down as she considers the question. Taking a few steps forwards to stand in front of Snow, she takes her chin in her hand and turns her step-daughter's face to look at her as she remembered doing when Snow was a child. "I didn't," she finally tells her. "I have never stopped loving you, not really. I still love you. It's something that I've tried to suppress, to forget, and I've been alarmingly successful but there is still a place in my heart where I can't help but love you. You were a very sweet child, perhaps too naïve and sheltered, but sweet nonetheless, and I always wanted a child. Perhaps, under different circumstances, I could have been a better mother."

Snow regards her for a long moment before sighing. "You were a good mother Regina."

Regina looks at her step-daughter incredulously and Snow smiles. "Okay, so sending me off into the forest to be murdered notwithstanding, you were a good mother. Do you remember when I was sick when I was ten?"

Regina nods slowly, confused by the question.

"My mother loved me very much, but when I was sick she would come and see me from time to time but other than that she would let the servants tend to me. She was worried about getting sick herself, you see, and then getting my father sick and it would be very bad for the kingdom to have the entire royal family in bed and unwell. But you didn't leave with the servants. You could have. You could have done so easily but instead you sat by my bed all day and all night and fed me soup and soothed my fever with cool cloths and held my hair back when I was sick. I remember thinking that I must be the luckiest girl in the world to have been blessed with such a wonderful step-mother. Such a wonderful mother." She is quiet for a moment, thinking over the bitter-sweet memory, before she continues. "And then of course I got you sick."

Regina smiles as she remembers. "And you were still sick yourself and you had no idea what you were doing but you tried to bring my fever down like I had done for you. Only the cloths you used were ice cold and far too wet."

Snow laughs aloud at this. "I shall never forget the look on your face when I slapped that cloth on your forehead."

Regina laughs with her and shakes her head. "I shall never forget how thoroughly you managed to soak everything. We had to move to a different room you made the bed so damp."

It feels strange to them both to be sharing a laugh together after so many years but, at the same time, it feels so very right.

"It worked though, once I showed you how to squeeze the cloths out properly. You brought my fever right down."

"We healed each other," Snow agrees.

Regina nods. "Perhaps we can do that again," she says quietly after a long moment of silence. "I do not expect you to forgive me," she adds, almost as an afterthought.

"Nor I you. But I don't think we need to forgive each other, not yet, We only need to be able to move on and try to make the future better. We've been fighting for so long and I really don't want to fight anymore."

"I don't want to fight with you anymore either. All of this, it was supposed to be good, supposed to make me happy. I thought that hurting you would bring me happiness but it has only ever seemed to hurt me more."

"I thought that killing Cora would bring me happiness but. . .well, I don't think murder or revenge really work that way."

Regina shook her head slowly, deep in thought. "No, I don't suppose they do."

Silence falls between them again but it is far more comfortable than the silence has been before. After a minute Snow breaks it.

"Would you like to come to dinner tomorrow?"

"Dinner? With you and Emma and David? "

"And Henry," Snow reminds her.

"And Henry," Regina agrees. "But Emma and David hate me. They'll try to kill me if I put one foot inside that apartment."

"I won't say that they don't hate you, but they won't try to kill you. Emma was willing to give you the benefit of the doubt once before and she'll do it again, if only for Henry's sake. And David. . . well, David will do as I tell him."

Regina grins slightly at this. "Somehow I don't doubt that that's true."

"So will you come?"

As her step-daughter turns to her with wide, hopeful eyes, Regina remembers all the times that Snow would beg her to come to her tea parties as a child and Regina finds herself as incapable of rejecting her invitation now as she was then. Although, she's fairly sure that Snow's dolls and teddies made better company than David and Emma were going to.

"Okay, I'll come."

Snow smiles and it's a beautiful smile that's full of so much hope and happiness that Regina can't help but return it. "Great! About 7?"

"About 7," Regina echoes with a nod, still not entirely sure that it's the best idea. But she wants to feel good again, she wants to be happy and be loved and with her mother gone her options for people to love are running low. All that remains, is her son and, maybe now, despite all that has passed between them, the woman who is still, in her heart, her daughter. Perhaps, after all this time and all of this pain, they can finally be enough for her and she enough for them.


	2. Love Is Strength

**This was just going to be a one-shot, but then NCISGleek got me thinking about what would have happened at that dinner. I'm sorry it took a while to get it up, but I've had the flu all week. (If you're reading "Til Death Do Us Part", there should be a new chapter tomorrow.) I hope you all enjoy!**

Emma came down the stairs, tying her still damp hair into a ponytail, and she let out a low whistle as she saw what Snow was cooking.

"Jeez Mary Margaret, that's a lot for dinner for the four of us," she said as she looked over Snow's shoulder at the steaks and vegetables. "What's all this in aid of?"

David and Henry followed Emma into the kitchen expressing similar levels of surprise at Snow's choice of meal and Snow looked up to glance at the clock which, to her frustration, read five to seven.

"Well," she said, splashing some wine onto the steaks. "It's not technically just us for dinner."

David frowned confused. "You've invited someone to dinner? Why didn't you say anything?"

Snow bit her lip as she pulled some plates out of the cupboard. "It's Regina."

"Regina?" David exclaimed.

"You've invited the Evil Queen to dinner?" Emma asked Snow in disbelief.

"Don't call her that Emma."

"Why the hell not? Don't you remember everything that she's done to us? And you've invited her round to eat steak as though we're one big happy family!"

"Emma!" Snow snapped. "Stop it. Whatever's happened we are family. She's Henry's adoptive mother. And she's my step-mother."

"Your evil step-mother!"

"Emma please! Regina and I are trying to make amends and have a fresh start, can you please just try too?"

"Amends? Are you out of your mind? I bet you anything she's only agreeing to this to get closer to Henry so that she can snatch him away from us. She's tried to kill us Mary Margaret! I don't think that you can get a fresh start after murder!"

Snow was unable to hide the flash of pain across her face at Emma's words and her daughter brought her hands to her mouth and gasped as she realised what she'd just said.

"Oh Mary Margaret, I'm sorry. . .I didn't mean. . .I meant malicious  
murder not self defen-"

"No Emma, stop," Snow said quietly. "Maybe you're right. Maybe there is no redemption from murder but I don't think that I'm ready to give up on myself, not yet. And if there's a path back to goodness for me then there is one for Regina too and if she is willing to walk it then I am going to  
walk with her every step of the way, with or without your support." She pointed her wooden spoon at her husband and daughter and tried to sound stern despite the quiver in her voice. "Either you sit down, eat with us and be civil or you can both leave. If there is a chance that the evils of the past may be made right then I am going to do whatever I can to make that happen. Do you understand?"

The idea of having Regina round for dinner was an unpleasant one for Emma but Snow looked at her with such hopeful and pained eyes that Emma found that she wasn't able to argue with her mother.

Emma nodded, reaching into a drawer to get out some cutlery. "I understand," she said quietly.

David wrapped his arms around Snow's waist. "I can't say I'm thrilled about it, but if this is what you think is right, then I'll support you."

Snow smiled at them both. "Thank you," she said sincerely. "Now, she'll be here at seven so please help me put the food out on the table."

A few minutes later, Regina was stood outside the door to the apartment debating with herself. Part of her desperately wanted to just walk in, to see her son and to try and continue her reconciliation with her step-daughter but another part of her was terrified and wanted to leave immediately. What if Snow had been wrong and Henry really hated her? What if she'd been lying and this was all a plot to set her up and kill her?

The decision was taken out of her hands a moment later when the door swung open and she found herself face to face with David.

"Regina. Welcome," he greeted politely, but with a clear undercurrent of warning and distrust.

Snow came running up a second after her husband, a smile on her face. "Regina! It's so lovely to see you. May I take your coat?"

Regina almost scowled at Snow's over enthusiasm but then she noticed the tension and worry behind it and remembered that she was striving to get on with the woman so she forced herself to smile back.

"Thank you very much Snow," she responded as sweetly as she could manage. "It's lovely to see you all too."

Emma snorted and this time Regina really did scowl but, to her surprise, Snow did too. Taking Regina's coat, she stalked over to her daughter.

"Emma," she hissed. "You promised. Be nice!"

Emma pulled a face but nodded in agreement. However, she had no desire to actually make nice with the woman who had been the cause of most of her problems so she decided that her mother would have to make do with her not being openly hostile to the Queen.

Regina could tell that Emma wasn't happy, but all thoughts of the woman were taken out of her head when her son appeared and wrapped his arms around her. Regina knew straight away, as she hugged her little boy, that she had made the right decision in coming and that she would endure any number of uncomfortable dinners with the Charming family for the chance to spend time with Henry.

"I'm so happy that you're here Mom! It's great to see you!" Henry said, beaming up at her. For the eleven year old, this was his dream come true. He loved both of his moms and the idea of having to choose between them was devastating. Though he could tell that neither Emma nor his grandfather were too happy about the situation, he truly believed that Regina could change and that, if they'd all just give each other a chance, they could learn to love each other as much as he loved them all.

"Dinner's ready!" Snow called out as she placed the last bowl of food on the table and the five of them all sat down.

Henry sat on one side of the table next to Regina whilst Emma and her parents sat down along the other side, and, for the first few minutes, his excited chattering filled the silence. When he realised that he was getting only an occasional smile or nod in response however, he eventually trailed off. For the next few minutes after that, the only sound that could be heard was the scrape of cutlery on plates. Deciding that, since this had all been her idea, it was therefore her responsibility to make it go as smoothly as it possibly could, Snow finally attempted to start a conversation.

"So Regina, how have you been?"

It was weak she knew, and she cringed as her step-mother raised an eyebrow at her. How had she been? There was a lot that Regina could tell the family about how she'd been. The curse she'd sacrificed so much for had been broken, her mother was gone, there was a lot that she could say. But looking at the little boy that she loved so much sat next to her and the girl that she was learning to love again sat across the table, Regina settled on a simpler answer.

"Fine. I've been fine thank you. And you?"

Snow had been no more fine than Regina recently but she also had no more desire to talk about it and so she too settled on the easy, if untruthful, answer.  
"I've been fine as well thank you."

Another few seconds of silence, and Snow tried again. "Emma? David? How's the sheriff's office been?"

"Fine," came Emma's curt response and Snow turned to her husband, silently pleading for him to elaborate.

"Well," David said clearing his throat. "It's not been too bad. Not too many crimes really going on in Storybrooke at the moment." There was a bit more silence as David desperately tried to think of something else to add. "Running around to try and find Henry's something of a full time job though!" He said smiling at his grandson, who looked back at him slightly sheepishly.

It was meant as a joke, something to lighten the mood, but it turned out to be exactly the wrong thing to say.

Regina looked up from her dinner to glower at Emma. "Yes," she said. "One would wonder how the sheriff manages to pay so little attention to her son that he was able to run off to the mines and wander around with dynamite in his backpack."

Emma was up in arms immediately and she glared back at Regina. "Well, one would wonder how the mayor manages to pay so little attention to her son that her was able to run away to Boston and then get stuck in a mine and then get poisoned."

"One would also wonder.." Regina growled back but she was interrupted by Henry.

"Stop it! Would you both just stop it? Why do you have to fight over who's the best mom? You're both amazing moms and I love you both."

Emma and Regina stayed quiet for a moment. For both women, their ideal situation with their son included the other not being anywhere nearby, but they had begun to realise more and more that this was now a complete impossibility. Their eyes met across the table and, for once, they shared a mutual understanding. Attempting to push each other out of the picture was not going to work and, if they persisted, they were fairly sure that all that would happen was that they would both lose Henry.

Emma sighed. "I'm sorry Henry."

Regina nodded, "I'm sorry too."

"This dinner's about getting on better, right? So can you stop arguing?"

"We can try," Regina promised, knowing that that was as far as she could swear. Not fighting with Emma Swan would be easier said than done.

"We'll try our best," Emma agreed, feeling similarly doubtful about her ability to not argue with Regina.

Henry smiled at them both. "Good."

Dinner continued in silence for a few more minutes, whilst Snow looked around at the four people she was dining with. She could see Emma and David still levelling glares towards Regina and, though she wished that they wouldn't, she understood.

For her, her foundation for forgiving her step-mother and trying to move on was rooted in the happy memories of her childhood and her firm held belief that the woman who had been so good to her was still somewhere inside of the woman who had been so cruel. They had shared a memory together when they'd talked the other day and Snow knew that given a chance they could both recall many more happy moments like that. For Emma and David, it was not so easy. Neither had any happy memories to share with her. To her husband and daughter, Regina had always been the Evil Queen. Only Snow remembered a time when she was not evil. A time when she was just the Queen.

"How did this even happen?" Emma was the last person Snow had expected to break the silence and she looked over at her in surprise.

"What do you mean Emma?"

"Well, last week you hated each other. How on earth did you get to a place where you were inviting her for dinner?"

"I went round to speak to Regina a few days ago and. . ."

"What?" Charming interjected in shock. "Are you out of your mind? She could have killed you!"

"Well she didn't and honestly Charming, how did you think I invited her for dinner if I didn't talk to her?"

"I just think that you shouldn't have gone alone."

"I considered it. Killing her," Regina said, and all four Charmings turned to look at her in horror. "Oh don't look at me like that, obviously I didn't! I'm tired of fighting. That's what we talked about, Snow and I. We had a long conversation, one we should really have had many years ago, but we agreed that fighting was just hurting us both and I don't want to be hurt. I want to be happy, with Henry and with Snow. So we talked about her childhood and how much I love Henry and how I love. . love Snow as well and then she invited me to dinner."

"You love her?" Emma asked. "You've got to be kidding me. You've been trying to kill her for decades! You took her baby away from her! You don't hurt the people you love. You just don't."

"My view of love was warped, Emma, by my mother. She told me that love was weakness and I believed her so I tried to suppress it, ignore it, and I did that well. But it was always there. You know, in some ways my mother was right. Love causes weakness because it makes you vulnerable to pain and suffering and grief. No one can ever hurt you so much as the ones that you love," she looked at Henry as she said this, thinking of how her heart had broken when he pushed her away and said that he hated her. "And you can never hurt anyone so much as the ones that love you." At this, her gaze turned to Snow as she thought of how she had broken the girls heart when she had told her she hated her and tried to kill her when all that her step-daughter had ever offered her was love.

"But though love does cause some weakness, love is strength. If you have no one to love then you have nothing. You can have all the material things that any world has to offer, but what is their use if you're all alone? Love is what gives you the strength to make difficult choices, to overcome obstacles and to persevere even when it seems that all hope is lost, because you know that no matter what happens, you won't be alone. You know that you have someone who'll be there for you through everything and that gives you strength. I have come to realise this and also to realise that I have lived for a long time without any of the strength that comes from love and I don't want to live like that any more."

Everyone was silent after Regina's deceleration. Emma and David were both conflicted. Regina had done so much to hurt them all and David had long believed her incapable of real love, but it was hard to doubt the sincerity in her words. For a moment, David caught a glimpse of the woman that he knew his wife and grandson saw. A woman who, in reality, was scared and lonely and desperate to be loved.

Henry reached out and laced his fingers through his adoptive mother's. "You are strong Mom. I love you."

Snow grasped Regina's other hand. "I love you as well."

To Regina's surprise, she felt tears running down her cheeks as she looked at the two people still alive that honestly loved her with their whole hearts and she wished that he had opened her eyes to the truth of their love earlier. David took Snow's spare hand and, after a brief second of hesitation, reached out to take his daughter's hand. Emma looked at him in surprise, her first instinct to pull away, but then she smiled and squeezed his hand.

"I love you Emma," he said softly.

"I love you too." She lent across the table and held her hand out to Henry. He took it and they smiled at each other.

"I love you kid."

"I love you too Mom."

It was with a slight surprise that they realised they were now all five joined together, but none of them were willing to relinquish the hands that they were holding. So they sat for a long while, holding hands around the dinner table, and all feeling a deeper sense of peace than they had in a very long time. There was a hard road ahead of them, but they all knew that they would have the strength to make it through because they had love and love is strength.


End file.
